the cold hard equation
by remixicity
Summary: sometimes there is no solution to be had, and sometimes there are necessary evils. Sam-centric. sam/jack, sam/daniel friendship


"Hey, Carter," a familiar voice says, and Sam pulls her head out of the inner workings of the ship SG3 had managed to steal out from under a minor Goa'uld and bring back to the base.

"General," she says distractedly, and the scanner beeps in her left hand. She starts to duck back underneath, but is stopped by his hand on her leg.

"Ah, Carter," he says, and she sighs, and resigns herself to a break. "What are you doing?" he asks and she stands up and puts her tools on the table.

"Stripping, sir," she explains, gesturing to rows of neatly laid out parts and coils of wire, "everything that's not needed has got to go, for the weight limits." He nods, and Sam takes her first proper look at him since he interrupted her. He's wearing the same dress blues he was during their first briefing four days ago, with the jacket discarded and the sleeves rolled up, sloppy and lopsided. There are circles under his eyes to match hers and his hair is even more disheveled than usual. She offers him a tired smile that she knows looks more like a grimace than anything else and his lips quirk in response. Her laptop beeps on a nearby counter—the latest simulation finished. She moves to check it.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" he asks, and reaches to fiddle with an exposed panel.

"Little late for second guesses, sir," she murmurs, and takes a deep relieved breath. They're still on schedule.

"I don't like it," he says, and what he means is iI don't like you doing it alone/i. The panel he's poking sparks and starts to flash red. Sam closes her eyes and sighs. "Oops," he adds helpfully, and takes a few steps backwards.

"I'm almost done, sir," she says, moving to get back to work, and adding only a hint of _get out of my way_ into her tone. "it'll be ready on time."

"Last briefing at oh-nine-hundred tomorrow," he says crisply, "get some sleep, Carter, that's an order." 

Sam is exactly three minutes early to the briefing, the way she is always exactly three minutes early, and she can feel weariness pulling at the corners of her eyelids and settling into her muscles. She pours herself some coffee and takes a seat. The General enters the room and she rolls to her feet easily, ignoring his customary scowl at the motion and waiting until he gestures for her sit. Daniel shuffles in, dressed for gate travel, and Teal'c follows, similarly kitted out, along with the heads of two specialized teams put together specifically for this mission. Everyone's faces are pinched and tired, and even Teal'c looks strained.

"Okay," Jack says brusquely, "over the plan one more time. Carter?"

"The ship is ready," she says, flipping her folder open even though she knows everything by heart. "Everything is packed and waiting on the Alpha Site for takeoff. I'll be flying the ship to Koho, where Daniel and Teal'c will be waiting on the ground to help with the last minute calculations and beam me out of the ship after I set the charges and the autopilot."

"We'll also be handling Sam's last minute needs and ship systems for the last three days of the journey, with a separate ground crew operation from here for the first two weeks," Daniel adds smoothly, and Teal'c inclines his head. Sam flashes him a tired smile and Daniel returns it, and Sam is hit again with how much she missed him.

"And we're sure that this will sufficiently divert the asteroid from Kona?" Jack asks, and ignores Daniel's muttered _Koho_. Sam nods.

"I've run every simulation I can think of, and the rest of the response research team agrees. The only factor that is crucial is time. We're pushing the limits of the ship quite severely."

"Ah," Jack says, "hence the… cannibalized look." Sam nods quickly, and flips to another page in her folder.

"Everything that's not needed has been removed, and there are minimal supplies on board. There's about fifteen to twenty pounds of margin weight, after taking into account everything, including my own body weight."

"Cutting it pretty close," Jack notes, and frowns at the inventory sheet. "Just another day," Jack says, and stands. They stand with him, and he sighs. "Fly the friendly skies, Carter."

"Thank you sir," she says, and he smiles at her the same way he does after she pulls something out of her ass and blows up a sun to save the world, with the same edge of worry when he realizes that she's making it up as she goes. 

The actual taking off is what Sam was worried about the most, because she'd removed several safety measures, but it all goes exactly according to plan, and she passes the first four days running diagnostics and simulations, over and over, redoing and rechecking her calculations. She has one precious video link with Cheyenne Mountain, and she spends a lot of time with the scientist she'd left in charge in her absence, writing contingency plans and going through the different problems that could occur. The rest of the time she sleeps, or wanders the ship. All her food is standard astronaut fare, dry and light, and they'd carefully calculated the minimum amount of water needed for the journey. Her mouth is dry and parched all the time, but she gets used to it.

There's one window in the entire ship, and Sam sleeps in front of it, because this is what she dreamed of, floating in the cradle of the universe in a space ship by herself, and it only took a giant chunk of rock hurtling towards a trade agreement planet to make it happen.

"Hey Carter," Jack says, and levels a glare at Dr. Noel, who wilts visibly and mumbles something about needing to check something in her lab, scurrying away. Sam smiles with only a hint of disapproval at him, low resolution on a small screen.

"How is it up there?" he asks, and Sam shifts on screen, sitting down with her legs crossed and back against a metal grating.

"Quiet, sir," she says, and he nods.

"Dr. Noel says you've pretty much finished everything that needs to be done," he says, reaching behind the laptop and unplugging the charger from the wall. He stands with the laptop and walks out of Sam's lab, heading for the elevator. Sam looks confused.

"There's no Dr. Noel on staff." Jack balances the computer in one hand and reaches out to push the button, nodding at a passing airman who snaps to attention so fast Jack has fleeting concern for his spine.

"You know," he says, stepping into the elevator and jabbing at the button for the gate room, "Dr. Noel. Shortish, brown hair, may actually be living in your lab." Sam has that look she gets when Jack asks if her particle accelerator can also tell time.

"Dr. Liu, sir," she corrects, and Jack waves a hand, walks briskly into the control room.

"Siler!" he barks, "Say hi to Carter."

"Hello, ma'am," Siler says respectfully, "how goes the mission?"

"Well, thank you, Lieutenant" Sam replies, and Jack turns the computer so they can see each other.

"Carry on," Jack says to the room at large, "we've got more people to visit." 

It becomes a daily occurrence, for Jack to kick off whoever is currently speaking to Sam and to carry the laptop around the mountain. He takes her to the cafeteria to show her the blue jello and to Daniel's office to gleefully show her an ancient Mayan tablet the cleaning staff had broken, and a lot of times he leaves it open on his desk while he slogs through paperwork and prepares briefings.

Sam does a lot of sleeping, now, catching up and preparing for the sleepless days ahead after this portion of the mission is completed. Even if she manages to pull this off, chunks of the asteroid are still going to fall on the planet. She'll need to hit the ground running on Koho, calculating what cities will be hit and helping Daniel to organize response teams. Once, the General is telling her about the latest crisis involving an inadequate number of potatoes in the mess when she falls asleep, leaning against a wall with her webcam shining blue on her face. When she wakes up she sees his face, quietly reading another memo, and she smiles before she goes back to sleep. It's more comforting that she would have thought. 

Jack parks his truck in the parking lot and nods to the airman on security detail, and makes it all the way to the threshold of his office before he hears his name.

"_So_ close," he says mournfully to his desk chair, and turns to great Dr. Gemma (Dr. Grema? Dr. Greem?).

"General O'Neill," he says breathlessly, straightening his shirt, "there's a situation you need to know about."

"Of course, Dr Gr…" Jack trails off, and the short bald scientist stares blankly at him before starting slightly.

"Dr. Gren," he says, and Jack nods quickly.

"Yes of course, Dr. Gren. Lead on."

"Sir, Dr. Gren," Sam greets, but her face is somber. "There's an anomaly in the readings."

"We know," Jack replies, craning his head to see Sam over Gren's shoulder, "you're too slow." Sam frowns, heavily, and starts rattling a checklist to Gren, who nods and makes notes.

"Blah blah check the blah blah make sure blah blah," Sam says, and Jack lets himself tune out, trusting Sam to know what needs to be done. He waits until Gren has left to start running scans, and sits down in front of the computer.

"Bottom line?" he asks, and Sam grimaces.

"Not good, sir," she says, and drags her fingers through her hair, "as it stands now, I won't make it there in time."

"The extra fuel?" Jack asks, and Sam shakes her head jerkily. "We have the emergency supply, and it's more than enough, but if the extra weight is still here, it doesn't matter. We have to find where we missed about a hundred and thirty pounds and get rid of it before we can do an extra burn."

"Should I give the order to begin evacuations?" he asks and Sam pushes her thumb into her right eyesocket.

"No sir," she says finally. "Not yet. We have three days until I'm out of communication range with Stargate Command and in range of Koho, and the decision can wait until then." Jack nods.

"Gren says he'll have some results for you in about six hours," he says, checking his watch, "report in then?"

"Yessir," Sam says, and closes the link. 

Jack dials her from conference room two, a makeshift base of operations, and the handpicked-by-Sam ground chief Captain Lee hovers behind him, chewing on her nails.

"Bad news, Carter," he says regretfully, "Dr. Gren says they can't find anything, and both Captain Lee here and her second Dr. Atris agree. Nada."

"On the contrary sir," Sam says, and Jack suddenly realizes that pinched, strained look on her face isn't worry or fear, it's anger, and horror. He frowns, and is opening his mouth to ask for an explanation when Sam yanks a woman into view by the collar of her shirt. Jack closes his mouth.

"Oh Jesusfuck," Captain Lee says. 

Sam had found her in the supply room, crouching over a box of protein bars and water provisions, and had reached for her weapon before she realized she didn't have one. Improvising, she looped her forearm around the woman's throat and dragged her backwards, head tilted to avoid possible attacks on her eyes, and choked her out. Then she'd secured her to the metal floor grating with ripties and waited to check in with Stargate Command.

"She's one of the astronomers with the delegation residing on base to help with the mission," she tells Jack, "she snuck aboard to see her husband on Koho."

"Did she _read_ the mission briefings?" Jack asks, and is aware of the distinct high pitched tone his voice has taken on. He takes a deep breath, and turns to Captain Lee.

"Solutions," he barks, "we have two days to fix this. Go."

"Jettison the woman," Captain Lee says promptly. Jack blinks at her.

"Try again," he says.

"Kill the woman and then jettison her?" she offers, and Jack stares. He turns to the computer.

"Your turn," he says to Sam. She grimaces.

"We've got about a hundred pounds of weight we just can't have," she says, and Jack feels something sink in his stomach at her tone. "I don't know, sir." 

"My name is Mohai," she tells Sam softly, "I am married to Kane." Sam paces in front of her, only marginally listening, brainstorming and discarding suggestions one by one in her head.

"What were you thinking," she finally snaps, "do you have any idea what you've done?"

"I did not know," Mohai says, and starts to cry. Sam turns away, and heads for the engine room. She needs to check in with her team on base, she needs to think, she needs SG1, she needs a miracle. 

"Hey Sam," Daniel says softly and Sam blinks in surprise. "Jack said we've got a bit of a hiccup in our plan so I came back to base to see what I can do." Sam smiles. Daniel has always been her best sounding board.

Four hours later she sighs and throws the pencil she'd been rolling in her fingers aside. "It's the best there is, Daniel. If I can find one hundred pounds of material I can get rid of, we can make it in time. Any spare paneling, lights, any water we can spare, my tools, some functions it's possible to run the ship without." Daniel frowns.

"Can you even find _fifty_ pounds?" he asks, "You were pretty stark to begin with. Are there enough supplies for you and her to make it? You barely had enough for you."

"I know," Sam says quietly, and she does. She drops her head into her hands. "How many could you evacuate if you started now?"

"The population is smaller than Earth's, maybe only three billion. But they're spread out, and the stargate isn't even in the biggest city. In three days? Maybe ten thousand, maybe less." Sam feels hollow.

"Sam," Daniel says softly, and she looks at him through her fingers. "Did you know Koho means choice in Hawaiian?" Sam snorts, and tries not to cry.

"You would know that," she says, and her voice breaks.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Daniel whispers, "she has to go." 

Half an hour before the deadline Sam calls Stargate Command and Jack takes the laptop into his office and shuts the door and the blinds.

"It just wasn't enough, sir." Sam says tiredly, and knows she looks terrible. She's sitting with her back against the window, and Jack can see just see Koho behind her.

"Anything else you can do?" Jack asks, and Sam slumps farther down.

"I have until I'm out of range of the base, and then-she knows already, at least," she says softly, "She claims to understand." Jack swallows hard. "I'm out of ideas," she confesses, and closes her eyes, tilts her head until it rests on the cold glass. They sit in silence for a while, and then Jack opens his mouth.

"Once," he says very gently, and his voice feels hoarse and rough, "once I had a son named Charlie." 

There's only one minute left now, and the countdown in the corner of her screen has gone red and flashing.

"You're the best there is, Carter," Jack says, and knows it to be true. "We'll get through this." Sam pulls her boots on and starts to do up her laces, fingers shaking.

_twenty seconds_

"I'm sorry, Sam," he says, and her name from his lips feels the way it always does, like a rush of cool water, like jumping into a pool for the first time and reaching with her toes to push off the bottom and breaking the surface to breathe, the uncertainty of drowning.

_fifteen seconds_

Sam starts to cry, hand over her mouth to stifle the noise and shoulder shaking, fighting each sob to the end and losing every time.

_ten seconds_

"Come home safe," he says, because the darkness that will be in her eyes after this scares him.

**five**

"I am going to save three billion people," Sam says, and feels like her soul is being ripped from her chest. Her mother is reading her poetry inside her head _and when your heart has been torn asunder_

**three, two, one-**

"All hail Dorothy," Jack says gently, and vanishes from her screen.

**zero.**


End file.
